BREAKING: Illinois In Danger Of Masking Up Again As Covid Rises?
BREAKING NEWS: Could Illinois be in danger of having to mask up again as covid begins to rise in some areas of the state?
Businesses, schools, and people in general have been happy but cautious since the statewide mask mandate was lifted Feb. 28, but as covid-19 numbers decline overall statewide, some parts of the state are seeing numbers spike up again and some are in the high risk transmission area that could see local officials tell those Illinois residents to mask up again.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has ruled out returning to a statewide mask mandate as long as covid numbers remain at low levels. However, he has said it’s at the discretion of area officials if they want to implement a mandate in their counties.
More than 90 percent of the U.S. is now at medium or low risk for covid, and in those areas, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said people can safely go without masks. The CDC last month outlined a new set of metrics to determine a community’s risk level.
Omicron is making up 73 percent of the new cases of covid-19 nationwide.
A vast majority of Illinois’ counties are listed as having low risk of covid transmission, but not all are in the same boat as several are still considered high risk, leaving them open to potentially having to mask up again if local governments decide to make that move.
So could your county be at risk of having to mask back up?
You can find the CDC’s map of community levels by county here. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, here are all of Illinois’ counties ategorized by community level status:
High
- Effingham County
- Fayette County
- Gallatin County
- Johnson County
- Perry County
- Saline County
Illinois covid numbers are still high in some areas of the state.
Medium
- Adams County
- Champaign County
Christian County - Clay County
- Coles County
- Cumberland County
- Douglas County
- Edwards County
- Franklin County
- Ford County
- Fulton County
- Hardin County
- Jackson County
- Jasper County
- Knox County
- Logan County
- Marshall County
- Massac County
- Mason County
- Montgomery County
- Peoria County
- Pike County
- Pope County
- Richland County
- Tazewell County
- Wabash County
- Warren County
- Williamson County
Low
- Alexander County
- Bond County
- Boone County
- Brown County
- Bureau County
- Calhoun County
- Carroll County
- Cass County
- Clark County
- Clinton County
- Cook County
- Crawford County
- Dekalb County
- Dewitt County
- DuPage County
- Edgar County
- Effingham County
- Fayette County
- Gallatin County
- Greene County
- Grundy County
- Hamilton County
- Hancock County
- Hardin County
- Henderson County
- Henry County
- Iroquois County
- Jefferson County
- Jersey County
- Jo Daviess County
- Johnson County
- Kane County
- Kankakee County
- Kendall County
- Lake County
- LaSalle County
- Lawrence County
- Lee County
- Livingston County
- Macon County
- Macoupin County
- Madison County
- Marion County
- Massac County
- McDonough County
- McHenry County
- McLean County
- Menard County
- Mercer County
- Monroe County
- Morgan County
- Moultrie County
- Ogle County
- Perry County
- Piatt County
- Pope County
- Pulaski County
- Putnam County
- Randolph County
- Rock Island County
- Saline County
- Sangamon County
- Schuyler County
- Scott County
- Shelby County
- St. Clair County
- Stark County
- Stephenson County
- Union County
- Vermilion County
- Washington County
- Wayne County
- White County
- Whiteside County
- Will County
- Winnebago County
- Woodford County
